The World Becomes Red
by SpiritOfPower
Summary: Infinity: Fai delves into the darker parts of the world; hoping to bury his agony beneath every vice he can find, and trying to make Kurogane hate him. Kurogane watches. M for dark themes, nothing explicit. Oneshot. Spoilers.


**AN: Very dark story, IMO. It begins after the group's arrival in Infinity and takes place during the (four?) months that weren't covered. The ending essentially brings us back into the manga, so if it seems incomplete, it's because from there on it just flows into the canon story. The story's from Fai's POV, in case that's not clear at first...Please R&R! **

**Music I listened to that helped set the tone for this story: Nightwish, especially End of All Hope. **

It was dark. He found a woman who looked like Tomoyo, in an older, far more mature way. Somehow, it gave him a perverse pleasure, something further and darker than physical release, to take her.

**.........**

"Tonight, I found a hooker who looked like Tomoyo. She was pretty good."

Red eyes scalded him, burned him to the core. But the fury passed quickly, and that infuriated him. Always, it had been so easy to anger the ninja with stupid, meaningless things. Now, when he did things truly worthy of anger, when he so desperately _needed _the anger, it refused to come in more than brief flashes. The more Kurogane insisted upon not hating him, the more he hated Kurogane.

**.........**

He stared into suspiciously foggy alcohol and wished with all of what little heart he had left that he could drink it. Drink and drink and drink until all the world faded away and nothing was left but white, or black; he didn't care which, as long as it was empty.

A man approached him, big and burly and rough in appearance. His eyes were kind, though. Too kind. He didn't want kindness. He ignored the man's voice, pretended he didn't hear.

The next one grabbed him roughly by the shoulder and spun his barstool around so that they faced each other. Teeth bashed roughly against his and hard fingers dug into his arms. He saw the man with the kind eyes take a half-step forward as if to defend him, so he dug his own fingers into the harsh man's back and returned the...whatever it was. Not a kiss. A mutual assault, a battle.

_Yes. _This was what he wanted, what he needed.

**.........**

"I met a man at the bar. He made me scream. It's been a long time since anyone's managed that."

He didn't mention that he'd screamed in pain. After all, he'd wanted the agony, savoured it.

He saw fists clench, a jaw tighten, eyes flash. It was slower this time, to fade away and be gone. He felt the tiniest moment of victory. Then the anger dissipated, and a bleeding wrist was offered to him. He couldn't drink until the world was black or white. It only became red.

**.........**

He bit his tongue against the pain, feeling a fang slide into the soft muscle and tasting his own blood. It was sour in his mouth, not sweet and delicious like Kurogane's. When the tattooist was done, he studied the design on his hip. It was bitter and vulgar; just like he had become. A simple heart with a black X across it, and the top of a fist at the bottom, the middle finger pointing up into the heart. So much of what he felt, etched into just a couple of inches of skin.

He paid the tattooist with his body. Needles were not the only way the man inflicted pain.

**.........**

"I got a tattoo. See?"

He pulled his shirt aside more than was necessary, essentially exposing half of his upper body. He saw the tiniest flicker of lust and added it to his list of miniature victories.

"You'll regret that, sooner or later."

He shrugged.

"With any luck, I won't live long enough to."

Kurogane sighed, and took a heavy draught from the bottle he held. He envied Kurogane.

**.........**

One of his one night stands, a smirking hulk of a man who had taken him in the alley outside the bar where he spent all his time when he wasn't tending to Sakura or taunting Kurogane, introduced him to something horrible...something he delighted in. Needles, slipped under the skin, the substances within producing something like drunkenness, except even more intoxicating, even more blissfully mindless. He quickly learned where to buy more, learned when he should take the drugs so that he appeared fairly normal by the time he got back to the apartment.

It was better than alcohol. Kurogane couldn't smell it on him, couldn't question him. He could take it even despite the vampirism. It lifted him to a height far further than any liquor had ever taken him to. He spent his hours lying in bed with one stranger or another; men and women, faces blurred, names forgotten or never even known. And in those moments, drowning himself in sin, pleasure, and pain; sometimes, he was almost able to forget.

**.........**

After all he'd done...it was such a simple thing, such a tiny straw that finally broke the camel's back: just one simple sentence, on top of everything else.

He came back to the apartment bleeding in several places, with a broken bone in his arm and no feeling of pain. He studied the odd angle of his arm and dizzily thought that it was interesting, to see it bend that way. It was already healing, slowly.

Kurogane grabbed his good wrist and questioned him, worry and anger written on his face. He couldn't understand what the other man was saying. He shouldn't have come back, should have waited until his mind cleared. He didn't know why he'd come back. Kurogane was getting angrier. He vaguely recognized how badly he wanted the ninja, how intensely he wanted to be possessed by this man.

"What makes you do this, idiot!? Why do you let them hurt you?"

He looked up through blurry eyes and felt the need push past all his hatred and bitterness.

"Because you won't."

He saw something snap inside Kurogane. Saw the fury...and in a way he understood, no matter how hazy his mind was. Kurogane had tried to protect him, tried to keep him from harm...but instead the ninja had driven him directly into every vice and danger he could find.

Kurogane grabbed his shoulders, roughly.

He waited, dizzy and excited and terrified; waited for the pain, for blows. Waited to be shoved against a wall and taken brutally. Waited for the victory he found in defeat.

It never came. For a long moment Kurogane stared down at him, and he saw in those garnet eyes everything he expected to see; fury, desire, defeat. Then, slowly, it faded, as before...and even further; past cold indifference and into something warm, something he craved more deeply than the pain and humiliation he so constantly sought.

Warm arms wrapped cautiously around him, avoiding his broken arm and his wounds.

"You're not going out anymore, Fai. You can scream and hit me and do whatever you damn well like, but you're not going out again unless I'm with you."

He tensed, dug the nails of his good arm into Kurogane's shoulder; even extended his claws a little. The ninja didn't even flinch, just kept holding him. And he did as Kurogane had said. He screamed, and he hit, he pulled at Kurogane's hair and sank his fangs into the man's neck. Later, he would be infinitely grateful that the children and Mokona were gone, that Kurogane had sent them out shopping as if he knew in advance what would happen. When he had no energy and no anger left, and the drugs were wearing off and his whole body hurt as if he'd been trampled under the feet of a mob repeatedly, he collapsed against Kurogane and sobbed. Cried and cried until he felt as if there were not a drop of moisture left anywhere in his body. And through it all, the ninja just held him, silent and strong.

**.........**

The nights were no longer spent with strangers and needles. He sat on Sakura's bed, comforting her, and wondered whether or not he missed it. In a way, he craved it still: craved the pain and pleasure and finally the numbness. But...he could not allow himself to follow that path again. He had forgotten his purpose, forgotten that he must live, until the day Fai had his life and his name back. How long would it have been before someone hurt him too badly, or the drugs took too strong a hold? His vampirism made him strong, but not invincible.

In the aftermath of the anger and the tears, when he sat on the couch and Kurogane offered his wrist the same way a normal person might offer warm milk or hot tea after such an emotional outburst, he had wondered if he might move on; if it was true that after the storm, peace came. He quickly found that it was not true. His soul was no more at peace. Yet now, at least, his body could be kept safe, even from himself. Once or twice, at the start, he tried to sneak out, but quickly learned that Kurogane was always aware, always watching. The first few days, he'd suffered terrible shakes and dizzy spells and nausea, a reaction to the drugs no longer being present. It passed quickly though, his recovery aided by the vampire's blood in his veins.

He pushed himself firmly away from Kurogane again. Just because he'd broken down and spent nigh on an hour crying in the ninja's arms didn't mean anything was different. He still hated Kurogane for making him live...no, not live; rather making him suffer this miserable existence that was infinitely far from living.

He had had a chance to die, and Kurogane had stolen it from him. He could not cause his own death; could not allow himself to die by the hands of a strange bed-mate, or by overuse of the drugs. To bring about his own death, one way or another, would be to betray Fai, again. He could not do that. But in Tokyo, he had had a chance to die honourably; to have been killed by one he had tried to save. He could have passed into some semblance of a peaceful rest.

Kurogane had robbed him of that, and it was a cruelty not easily forgiven.


End file.
